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Ludwig Quidde - Biographical

Ludwig
Quidde (March 23, 1858 - March 4, 1941), the oldest son of a
wealthy merchant, grew up in the republican atmosphere of the
Hanseatic city of Bremen, enjoying an unusually liberal education
at its humanistic gymnasium, «an education in freedom to
freedom»1. He studied at the
Universities of Strassburg and Göttingen, where his
professors recognized and furthered his aptitude for historical
research. Under the sponsorship of Professor Weizsäcker in
Göttingen, Quidde was given a post on a board of editors
responsible for the publication of the medieval German Reichstag
documents, a post he held until 1933 when the Bavarian Historical
Commission removed him for political reasons. In 1889 he founded
the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft
[German Review of Historical Sciences], a journal which he edited
until 1896; from 1890 to 1892, he was on the staff of the
Prussian Historical Institute in Rome. Quidde, however, did not
follow a career as a professional historian, perhaps because he
had a substantial private fortune, but he always maintained a
lively interest in history, especially constitutional history,
even after his attention had turned from the academic to the
political.

The publication of the pamphlet Caligula: A Study of Imperial
Insanity2 in 1894 changed the
course of Quidde's career. Seemingly an objective study of the
Roman emperor Caligula, emphasizing his madness, his pleasure in
sham heroics, his ruthless use of power, his vanity as an actor
and conceit as an orator, the pamphlet was, in fact, a satire on
Emperor Wilhelm II and the «Byzantine» nature of the
Prussian society of which he was a part. Quidde escaped
conviction of the charge of lese majesty: he denied that he had
intended to draw an analogy between the two emperors, thus
leaving to the prosecution the task of proving the validity of
the analogy, an alternative too embarrassing to accept.

Quidde entered politics in Munich. In 1895 he helped to
reorganize the German People's Party which was, in political
philosophy, anti-prussian and antimilitary; in 1902 he won a seat
on the City Council of Munich; from 1907 to 1919 he served in the
Bavarian Assembly; in 1919 he was elected to the Weimar National
Assembly.

Quidde's political ideology was a direct heritage from the
Enlightenment. Uncompromisingly ethical, he strove to imbue the
German people with a sense of justice which would of itself
generate social reform. He had the courage of his convictions.
After delivering a political speech on January 20, 1896, Quidde
was accused of lese majesty, tried, and sentenced to three months
in the Munich prison Stadelheim. For writing an article in 1924
attacking secret military training, he was arrested, found guilty
of «collaborating with the enemy», and put in prison
for a brief period.

Initially not antiwar on principle, Quidde's interest in the
peace movement, prompting him to join the German Peace Society
shortly after its founding in 1892, grew out of his historical
studies, his ethical ideals, his distrust of the military, and
the urgings of his wife, Margarethe, whom he married in 1882. He
filled a position on the Council of the International Peace
Bureau in Bern, rose to a position of leadership in the World
Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901, joined with Frédéric Passy at the Congress
at Lucerne in 1905 to achieve a rapprochement between German and
French, supervised the organization of the World Peace Congress
of 1907 in Munich, became president of the German Peace Society
in 1914, a position he held for fifteen years.

When World War I broke out, Quidde went to The Hague, attempting
to maintain ties with English and French peace groups. The
attempt failed, and when Quidde returned to Germany he was
charged with treason, though the charges were later dropped.
Nonetheless, Quidde was kept under surveillance for months, his
mail censored, and his pamphlets confiscated. At the end of the
war, Quidde continued to pull together the remnants of the German
peace movement, heading the German Peace Cartel, a body composed
of twenty-one organizations.

When Hitler came to power, Quidde fled first to Munich and then
to Geneva, where he lived from March, 1933, until his death in
March, 1941. Although Quidde's private fortune had been wiped out
by the inflation, he was able to live fairly well with the help
of friends and with a subvention from the Nobel Peace Prize
Committee for his projected book, German Pacifism during the
World War, which was never finished. Even in exile, Quidde
continued to attend World Peace Congresses, to publish articles,
and to exercise his organizational talents by founding the
Comité de secours aux pacifistes exilés to care for
fellow political exiles from Nazi Germany.

Editor's Note In a subsequent
annotation in Europäische Gespräche (Heft VI,
Juni 1931, S. 304) - found when this volume was already in galley
proof - Quidde comments further on his interpretation of the
draft resolution of March 22. His interpretation is incomplete,
he says, because it does not mention the draft's «unreserved
recognition of the principle of balance between victor and
defeated of 1918 in the question of armaments». It is
inaccurate, he continues, because it implies that restrictions of
individual elements of armaments should proceed only from
suggestions made in the Peace Treaties; whereas, in fact, the
draft demands the prohibition of the specific means of war
forbidden by the Peace Treaties and recommends the adoption of
budgetary restrictions as a method of limiting the remaining
means of war - a method not mentioned in the treaties.

This autobiography/biography was written
at the time of the award and first
published in the book series Les
Prix Nobel.
It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.